the thing I think about all the time the
question I have is why do we help other
people why do we volunteer our time to
help others what is it about giving our
time resources and energy that is so
compelling to us as a species that we do
it all over the place not just here not
just in this place but across the
country around the world
every culture every society all
throughout human experience human beings
help each other but why the answer this
question is very important to us because
we work with companies to design and
implement their employee volunteering
programs so that means that employees
across companies are looking to mobilize
people to get involved in communities
where they live and work millions of
people around the world so the recent
explosion in neuroscience around the
world again and the last few years has
offered some insight as to what the
answer is and it turns out the answer to
this question is buried deep down inside
of our neural net in our brains and
there are two compelling drivers that
make us want to help other people the
first has to do with pleasure and the
second has to do with pain the first is
part of a reward system known as the
helpers hi now we have a number of
reward systems as a species that help us
persist and move forward look after
ourselves look after offspring it is
kept us alive as a species and when we
help other people when we take our time
to contribute to them and help them and
we can see their face it’s absolutely
critical we can’t be helping a stat or
an issue or we can’t be just helping by
stacking chairs although that may be a
part of it we have to be able to
visualize a person’s face to get this
reward this helpers hi to happen and the
other part is we have to understand the
significance of the task how is what I’m
doing
benefiting that person if those
conditions are met there’s a concoction
of endorphins that are released in our
brain they give us a feeling of euphoria
it’s very similar to a yoga high a
runner’s high and there’s another very
very important activity that as a
species where participate in an ongoing
basis that is made sure that we’re all
still here
procreation right sexual activity and
this idea of volunteering to help others
in science and when they stop
they realized that it’s very similar in
its concoction to a yoga high runner’s
high and sexual activity so when you go
to volunteer next time if you have a
t-shirt that says I volunteered sexy
science underneath you wouldn’t be far
off the market it’s about right
that’s a pleasure the pain is the other
side of the thing so I’ll give you a
story I’m cutting some radishes at the
dinner party you’re standing across the
counter for me and I don’t know if this
happened to you but the knife is a
little slippery and it slips and I cut
the end of my finger off and there’s
there’s blood everywhere right now I
feel that pain in my brain through it
something called the pain matrix it’s
all through my brain it lights up
neurons light up and I know I got a
problem I need to do something but it
you’re across the counter and you’re
looking at me and you’re thinking oh
yeah oh my gosh there’s a lot of blood
Wow that’s disgusting okay that’s the
first reaction the second reaction is I
should get a band-aid or I don’t know a
bath towel that is a lot of blood I
don’t know what to do I need a help okay
that’s what we call empathy and there
are those two reactions one is a version
where you can feel it and the other one
is you have to stop the pain and that is
because there are neurons buried deep
inside of your brain that cannot tell
the difference between when pain happens
to you and when it happens to someone
else that’s empathy we want to reach out
and we want to do something so these two
drivers together work to compel us to
help other people which is a good thing
when you think about it because it’s
kept us alive as of species we look
after our own people we look after our
group we protect ourselves from you know
animals and dinosaurs from getting eaten
and that kind of thing 95% of the
world’s populations brain works like
this the other 5% have issues of brain
issues like Psychopaths E or autism or
something like that but all of them our
brains typically fire up when we see
someone else in pain and want to do
something unless the default setting
kicks in and the default is we look
after our in-group and that’s a problem
it works really well for your in-group
and your in-group but people who look
like you same socioeconomic status
basically they’re from your area they
share your values you have a lot of
empathy for them
you don’t have a lot of empathy for
people in your oak group and that’s
unfortunate that allows us as human
beings to do terrible things to each
other on the one hand we’re very willing
to help intervene assist give our time
and energy but not for those people and
for every in-group you have you have
hundreds of oak groups and there’s a way
to deal with this and it is to take
advantage of the neural plasticity of
your brain until recently scientists
used to believe that the brain is what
the brain was but at the age of I don’t
know 14 or 18 or something like that
it’s fixed but now we know that new
neural pathways grow breakdown grow all
the time and that’s known as neural
plasticity and what we do with employee
volunteering it was we take people into
a situation where they have an
experience with their out group and
they’re forced to deal with that and
we’re looking for three fundamental
changes through employee volunteering
and they all have to do with perspective
the first change is a psychological
change this is how I perceive myself in
the world right Who am I what does it
mean the second is a convictional change
what do I believe to be true about the
world and that’s a tough one this is
where implicit bias comes in and the
third one is a behavioral change how I
act in the world instead of thinking
about employee volunteering in terms of
how many walls can I paint or chairs can
I stack we need to start thinking about
what kind of change are we seeing inside
of a person because that lasts that’s
generational that persists so to do this
you need to make sure the volunteering
experience involves three opportunities
the first is to alert to the situation
what does this mean okay what is going
on you orient to it what does it mean to
me and finally you act how is my
behavior gonna change and creating that
kind of space in volunteering isn’t easy
but it is possible and that’s the kind
of thing that changes our minds
literally so we believe in this stuff so
much that a few years ago we began an
initiative with un it’s known as impact
2030 and the idea is that we’re gonna
help achieve the sustainable development
goals around the world through employee
volunteering and we believe in it so
much we came here to Los Angeles to see
what we could do here with the companies
and we met
with the mayor’s fund and the Olympic
Committee and we’re exploring
opportunities for employee volunteering
to help address social issues like
homelessness or poverty in this city and
the thing of a transformative approach
to volunteering is this it’s not just
helping other people
it actually affords us the opportunity
to go beyond that’s something lasting a
more permanent because we can move to a
place where we understand what it means
to belong to each other and this is the
key if we can unravel the default
setting in our brain of in and out
groups I’m us I look after us I don’t
look after you
this is for me my problem is you if we
can address it to an immersive learning
environment we can rethink things we
have the opportunity to address the
chronic distrust and bias that we see in
our social political landscape we can
build communities that address these
social issues through a sense of
belonging to each other and coming
together to co-create solutions rather
than that’s your problem and it’s not my
problem so in your workplace the
question is this how could employee
volunteering contribute to an improved
culture a more inclusive culture a less
biased culture a one culture where
there’s more teamwork is it possible
that by going out taking your team’s
I’ve been getting involved in the
community
you guys could build communities in your
workplace where you share more
understand more and welcome more
diversity so I encourage you to go back
to your workplace and consider
participating in your employee
volunteering programs and if you don’t have one start what thank you
question I have is why do we help other
people why do we volunteer our time to
help others what is it about giving our
time resources and energy that is so
compelling to us as a species that we do
it all over the place not just here not
just in this place but across the
country around the world
every culture every society all
throughout human experience human beings
help each other but why the answer this
question is very important to us because
we work with companies to design and
implement their employee volunteering
programs so that means that employees
across companies are looking to mobilize
people to get involved in communities
where they live and work millions of
people around the world so the recent
explosion in neuroscience around the
world again and the last few years has
offered some insight as to what the
answer is and it turns out the answer to
this question is buried deep down inside
of our neural net in our brains and
there are two compelling drivers that
make us want to help other people the
first has to do with pleasure and the
second has to do with pain the first is
part of a reward system known as the
helpers hi now we have a number of
reward systems as a species that help us
persist and move forward look after
ourselves look after offspring it is
kept us alive as a species and when we
help other people when we take our time
to contribute to them and help them and
we can see their face it’s absolutely
critical we can’t be helping a stat or
an issue or we can’t be just helping by
stacking chairs although that may be a
part of it we have to be able to
visualize a person’s face to get this
reward this helpers hi to happen and the
other part is we have to understand the
significance of the task how is what I’m
doing
benefiting that person if those
conditions are met there’s a concoction
of endorphins that are released in our
brain they give us a feeling of euphoria
it’s very similar to a yoga high a
runner’s high and there’s another very
very important activity that as a
species where participate in an ongoing
basis that is made sure that we’re all
still here
procreation right sexual activity and
this idea of volunteering to help others
in science and when they stop
they realized that it’s very similar in
its concoction to a yoga high runner’s
high and sexual activity so when you go
to volunteer next time if you have a
t-shirt that says I volunteered sexy
science underneath you wouldn’t be far
off the market it’s about right
that’s a pleasure the pain is the other
side of the thing so I’ll give you a
story I’m cutting some radishes at the
dinner party you’re standing across the
counter for me and I don’t know if this
happened to you but the knife is a
little slippery and it slips and I cut
the end of my finger off and there’s
there’s blood everywhere right now I
feel that pain in my brain through it
something called the pain matrix it’s
all through my brain it lights up
neurons light up and I know I got a
problem I need to do something but it
you’re across the counter and you’re
looking at me and you’re thinking oh
yeah oh my gosh there’s a lot of blood
Wow that’s disgusting okay that’s the
first reaction the second reaction is I
should get a band-aid or I don’t know a
bath towel that is a lot of blood I
don’t know what to do I need a help okay
that’s what we call empathy and there
are those two reactions one is a version
where you can feel it and the other one
is you have to stop the pain and that is
because there are neurons buried deep
inside of your brain that cannot tell
the difference between when pain happens
to you and when it happens to someone
else that’s empathy we want to reach out
and we want to do something so these two
drivers together work to compel us to
help other people which is a good thing
when you think about it because it’s
kept us alive as of species we look
after our own people we look after our
group we protect ourselves from you know
animals and dinosaurs from getting eaten
and that kind of thing 95% of the
world’s populations brain works like
this the other 5% have issues of brain
issues like Psychopaths E or autism or
something like that but all of them our
brains typically fire up when we see
someone else in pain and want to do
something unless the default setting
kicks in and the default is we look
after our in-group and that’s a problem
it works really well for your in-group
and your in-group but people who look
like you same socioeconomic status
basically they’re from your area they
share your values you have a lot of
empathy for them
you don’t have a lot of empathy for
people in your oak group and that’s
unfortunate that allows us as human
beings to do terrible things to each
other on the one hand we’re very willing
to help intervene assist give our time
and energy but not for those people and
for every in-group you have you have
hundreds of oak groups and there’s a way
to deal with this and it is to take
advantage of the neural plasticity of
your brain until recently scientists
used to believe that the brain is what
the brain was but at the age of I don’t
know 14 or 18 or something like that
it’s fixed but now we know that new
neural pathways grow breakdown grow all
the time and that’s known as neural
plasticity and what we do with employee
volunteering it was we take people into
a situation where they have an
experience with their out group and
they’re forced to deal with that and
we’re looking for three fundamental
changes through employee volunteering
and they all have to do with perspective
the first change is a psychological
change this is how I perceive myself in
the world right Who am I what does it
mean the second is a convictional change
what do I believe to be true about the
world and that’s a tough one this is
where implicit bias comes in and the
third one is a behavioral change how I
act in the world instead of thinking
about employee volunteering in terms of
how many walls can I paint or chairs can
I stack we need to start thinking about
what kind of change are we seeing inside
of a person because that lasts that’s
generational that persists so to do this
you need to make sure the volunteering
experience involves three opportunities
the first is to alert to the situation
what does this mean okay what is going
on you orient to it what does it mean to
me and finally you act how is my
behavior gonna change and creating that
kind of space in volunteering isn’t easy
but it is possible and that’s the kind
of thing that changes our minds
literally so we believe in this stuff so
much that a few years ago we began an
initiative with un it’s known as impact
2030 and the idea is that we’re gonna
help achieve the sustainable development
goals around the world through employee
volunteering and we believe in it so
much we came here to Los Angeles to see
what we could do here with the companies
and we met
with the mayor’s fund and the Olympic
Committee and we’re exploring
opportunities for employee volunteering
to help address social issues like
homelessness or poverty in this city and
the thing of a transformative approach
to volunteering is this it’s not just
helping other people
it actually affords us the opportunity
to go beyond that’s something lasting a
more permanent because we can move to a
place where we understand what it means
to belong to each other and this is the
key if we can unravel the default
setting in our brain of in and out
groups I’m us I look after us I don’t
look after you
this is for me my problem is you if we
can address it to an immersive learning
environment we can rethink things we
have the opportunity to address the
chronic distrust and bias that we see in
our social political landscape we can
build communities that address these
social issues through a sense of
belonging to each other and coming
together to co-create solutions rather
than that’s your problem and it’s not my
problem so in your workplace the
question is this how could employee
volunteering contribute to an improved
culture a more inclusive culture a less
biased culture a one culture where
there’s more teamwork is it possible
that by going out taking your team’s
I’ve been getting involved in the
community
you guys could build communities in your
workplace where you share more
understand more and welcome more
diversity so I encourage you to go back
to your workplace and consider
participating in your employee
volunteering programs and if you don’t have one start what thank you
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